BLOUNT, William, (father of William Grainger Blount and brother of Thomas
Blount),
a Delegate from North Carolina and a Senator from Tennessee; born
near Windsor, Bertie County, N.C., March 26, 1749; pursued preparatory studies
in New Bern, N.C.; paymaster of the Continental troops, North Carolina Line, in
1777; member, State house of commons 1780-1784; Member of the Continental
Congress in 1782, 1783, 1786, and 1787; delegate to the Federal Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and one of the signers of the Constitution;
member, State senate 1788-1790; appointed Governor of the Territory South of
the Ohio river by President George Washington in 1790; Superintendent of Indian
Affairs 1790-1796; chairman of the convention which framed the first State
constitution of Tennessee 1796; upon the admission of Tennessee as a State into
the Union was elected to the United States Senate and served from August 2,
1796, until he was found guilty of a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent
with his public trust and duty as a Senator, because he had been active in a
plan to incite the Creek and Cherokee Indians to aid the British in conquering
the Spanish territory of West Florida; expelled from the Senate July 8, 1797;
impeachment proceedings were instituted but dismissed; during the trial was
elected to the State senate of Tennessee and chosen its president; died in
Knoxville, Tenn., March 21, 1800; interment in the First Presbyterian Church
Cemetery.

Bibliography

American National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Masterson, William.
William Blount. 1954. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press,
1969; Melton, Buckner F., Jr.
The First Impeachment: The Constitutions Framers and the Case of
Senator William Blount. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1998.